Month: February 2011

In ancient time, brahmana and ksatriya are the highest caste. However, they’re not very productive. Brahmana are simply religious leaders. Ksatriya are simply murderer.

The way is the same with everyone else. In Europe, knight and monks are highly respected. Rashidun Chalipate’s main income comes from looting neighboring countries. It lasts only 30 years before being replaced by a tyrant that slaughter Muhammad’s descendants. In ancient time, most countries, including muslim countries, are simply aggressive nations earning money through military campaign.

Yes they can be productive if they kill bad guys, but what happen when there are no bad guy left? What happen when the majority of the world are more interested in reaching prosperity rather than killing each other?

Those 2 will be useless.

Now, the greatest among us are those providing the best service to the most customer. Even porn stars and prostitutes are more respected than thugs or religious leaders.

So is it strange that religious leaders, and thugs, want to go back to the system that worked thousands of years ago?

Obviously they wouldn’t tell the people that they do it because they want to fill their coffer. That’s not sexy. If humans’ interests are the motives, religion is the ads. We don’t expect cigarette ads come and show, “Marlboro, contains only 5% nicotine, very addictive.” Eliminating religion is like insisting that all ads will be like that. Obviously it wouldn’t work.

And what about the people? Why would they select that kind of leaders?

Let’s face it. Most humans are not sexy. Recently, google build driverless cars. Under free fair competition, most people are just obsolete. No, I am not saying that crossbows are obsolete. I am saying that those who can only use crossbows are obsolete. Most people cannot compete with what the best and brightest can offer under free market. That’s just fact.

Say you oppose free sex. Say you said to the world, guys, we should prohibit free sex. If people are free to choose, and if all choices are seen, they won’t choose us. That’s not sexy isn’t it?

Of course they used religion. Alternatively they can say that porn cause rape, and we can see that it’s not true. Alternatively they can argue so much about how sex outside marriage demean women, but then we would recognize that as vague.

It only takes one country to try liberating their market, along with commercialized sex, and all sexiest most productive people will go there.

Their best strategy, from their point of view, is simply religion. For many reasons, people hate freedom. When all of us are free to choose, we don’t choose them.

Even when religions are gone, many would still opposes free sex. However, they can no longer come up with unverifiable excuses like that.

In fact, I seriously doubt atheism will bring peace. I saw that humans’ nature has very strong zero sum game component. It’s as if we are genetically predestined to trick and kill each other. Religions are not anomaly. It’s just the norm as we have seen from the last thousands of years.

One day, one guy accused me of sabotaging his search engine rank by linking to his site.

I was furious. Any SEO expert is aware that you can’t sabotage search engine rank by linking to it. There is no proof.

However, somehow he manage to convince my registrar anyway that told me to remove the offending link. Reluctantly I cleared my cache, making sure there is no link, which shouldn’t have been there in the first place. And move on. I thought problem was solved.

No. He convinced my registrar that the link was still there. Again, reluctantly I change the site to a static site where it’s easier to verify that the link was no longer there.

A week goes by, I thought this should be over. No. He again convinced my registrar that the link was still there. This time my registrar seized my domain. I was fuming. I had 3000 domains with that registrar.

If that registrar think I am a crook, I could be in significant trouble. The registrar thought that I

1. Linked to his site (not true).

2. Cause his rank to drop in search engine (not true).

3. Insist on doing it even after being told not to.

It’s nonsense. There is no proof whatsoever that I did it. I was frustated. Appeasing that guy doesn’t seem to work. Explaining doesn’t work. What the hell I should have done?

The asshole evidence is that yahoo think that my site link to his site. I pointed out that the domain is now suspended and yahoo still think my site link to that site. I latter found out that yahoo also count image hot linking as links but that’s kind of too technical.

My registrar wasn’t convinced. So I talked openly about that in forum.

Well, that asshole then talk to me privately about my supposed crime. I thought this is a good opportunity to straighten the idiot up. It’s a forum filled with search engine optimization expert. I’ll just talk about the issue openly and we all can see who the idiot was.

But no. Faith based people are NOT stupid. His REAL problem is he simply doesn’t have any intensive to be correct. Why should he? I am the one that’s in trouble. Why should he be correct? I told him about how yahoo still thought that my domain pointed to his domain despite the obvious fact that the domain had been suspended before. He simply said that it’s true that my domain was no longer pointing, but before it did.

It’s crazy. Same evidence. Yahoo thought that my domain linked to him. Yet he reached two different conclusions.

I asked what his problem was. How much money was involved? He refused to disclose any information.

He even offer some bargain. He’ll make things up with my registrar and I retract some complaint I put on the web on how much an idiot he is.

He also gave me strong “evidence.” He argued that the registrar must have done his own research. The truth is the registrar’s only evidence is my accusers’ faith.

I was furious. The registrar believed I was guilty because he believed I was guilty. Now it’s going circular. No proof. Weak evidence. Yet faith grows.

See. Faith based people ARE not stupid. They know what they’re doing. They know they are quite likely wrong. Deep in their heart they know. That’s why the asshole:

1. Didn’t want to talk openly on SEO forum. He knew his lie would be found out on this open forum.

2. Act confidently without showing doubt. He didn’t say he think I was guilty. He didn’t say he wasn’t sure I was guilty. Without evidence, he simply confidently said I was guilty on ridiculous charge. And the faith grew and grew.

But I am done with appeasing. I had carefully spent thousands of dollars to move the domains somewhere else. Worst come to worst I am ready to face the brunt of my registrar. Also I do not like the idea of spending a few thousand dollars just because some idiot with no intensive to be correct gets on my way.

Hence, I simply destroyed his biz. After all, I am an SEO expert, and do knows how to lower sites rank from search engine, if I want to. How the hell some guy that didn’t know anything about SEO can push me around so much just because he believed was a little beyond me.

That’s how to deal with those that accuse or harm others of outrageous accusations based on flimsy evidence. We need to understand that the problem is never about the truth. Truth doesn’t matter. The problem is simply lack of intensive to be correct. Giving false reasoning is effectively saying that they’re going to crush us if we do not follow their will and there is no negotiation on that. Appeasing is dangerous because it’ll simply lead to more outrageous demand.

There is only one way to deal with those bigots. Find out what they hate most, do it BIG. But protect your self first from their wrath.

Again and again terrorists claim that 80% of Indonesian population is muslim. Islam considers Ahmadiyah a heretic. Hence, terrorists claim that they are justified to terrorize Ahmadiyah people.

Fine. Every country has a group of people they don’t like. Why don’t we create a referendum and see if 2/3 rd of Indonesians want Ahmadiyah kicked out. If indeed that’s the case, we’ll give Ahmadiyah 10 years to say find asylums. I too will start finding asylum if 2/3 of Indonesians think they should kick people out for having a different opinion.

Islam or not, religions or not, let the people choose. This is democracy. Let’s have that referendum. Let’s see how popular those terrorists are. I think there are more Indonesians that want to get rid those terrorists than those wanting to get rid Ahmadiyah. But I may be wrong. So let’s find out.

By saying that there are 80% muslims in Indonesia and islam consider Ahmadiyah’s heretics, terrorists are doing creative accounting. They essentially want to suggest that 80% of Indonesians agree with them.

Here is how the creative accounting works. People have big difference of opinions. It’s just fact. Any major religions that gain a lot of market share must be “flexible.”

You can’t have it both way.

If Islam has a very narrow doctrine the way the terrorists want us to believe, most indonesians are simply non muslim. That means terrorists shouldn’t count the kejawen, the jamaah islam liberal, Gus Dur’s followers, the “islam KTP”, etc as muslims. which is simply the majority of muslims in Indonesia. By the way, why not let all those people have their true beliefs show up in their KTP anyway?

If Islam has wide doctrine, then it’s simply the fact that the majority of indonesians, muslim or not, do not agree with those terrorists.

No matter how you compute it, the number of people that want to exterminate those Ahmadiyah should be the same.

Terrorists’ creative accounting happens on how they define islam. In counting the number of muslims, terrorists use the “wide” definition. However in defining what those muslim want, they use the “narrow” definition of islam, namely their own.

Well, are we going to let a small minority of terrorists decide our political stance or are we going to choose for our self, what we think is best for this country.

Only 30% of Germany are Nazis. Yet that small group of facists finally manages to take over the country and bring world war to the whole world in the name of all German people.

Perhaps the greatest irony of all those failed ideology is that in a sense they are successful. Communism and Nazim fail to deliver result for the people they lead and the world in general. Yet, unfortunately they are successful at one thing. They’re successful to rule, at everyone’s else expense. And that’s what the terrorists truly want. They want to rule and enslave us at everyone’s expense. They want to screw everyone on our name. They’ll fail to deliver result except to themselves.

Now those facists have a new flag. The used islam to justify their facism. Are we going to let them? Let’s fine out in a referendum.

Arguments are often futile against deluded people. Let’s settle this once and for all in an obvious way. Get a referendum. Let those that want to kick people out donate money for the costs.

I seriously doubt those terrorists can get get 2/3 rd of votes though. Maybe in some province but not the whole Indonesia.

You see, there is a reason why Osama bin Laden hate democracy. Somehow he knows that his idea is not going to win votes. There is a reason why most tyrants that govern muslim countries restrict freedom of speech. Somehow they know that freedom of information is not in their favor. They just don’t want their people to know.

The way we evolve we either compete or fight and occasionally cooperate. Still life has a lot of zero sum aspects. Hence people have different of opinions when it comes to ideology. They have different interests. Those differences of opinions don’t vary as much across all societies.

It varies more between people within a society more than between societies. That’s why democratic countries are sort of alike to each other. They have the same median and the opinion of that median don’t change much. The median rules in democratic countries due to median vote theorem if you want to get technical.

In one spectrum capitalists and libertarian wants free competition all the way. In other spectrum, some people want everything decided by political power. Terrorists are obviously on this end of the spectrum.

Most people, however, realize that free competition brings awesome results, but politic is inevitable. So most people are somewhat moderates.

Let’s examine the statement that 80% of Indonesians are muslims and islam consider ahmadiyah as heretic. How many Indonesians, including muslims do you think will think that being heretic means they worth kicking out?

Most of us do not want to be led by dictators. Most of us just want to increase our GDP rather than wasting our time over every petty difference. What’s the point of being a democratic country if we have to agree with terrorists first before we vote?

We know that countries that restrict freedom of opinion will end up to being led by tyrants. From communism, to Nazim, to Rashidun Chaliphate that the terrorist speak so highly, to contemporary Saudi, all have one common trait, they are all end up being led by a tyrant. That tyrant then simply use their power to oppress the people for their own gain.

Rashidun Chaliphate, a country so spoken highly by supporters of Sharia law, is finally ruled by Yasid that massacred and enslaved virtually all Muhammad’s descendants. The majority of muslim simply pledged their loyalty to Yasid though, out of fear. The one that doesn’t, Hussain, is slaughtered.

Yea, we got wikileak now, unlike 3000-1400 years ago, by the way. Let’s just say the gap between perception and reality, which is often the whole profit margins of politicians, are simply getting less and less.

Warriors and bullshitters should simply accept that their share in information age is going to get lesser and lesser. That’s the true motives behind those terrorists. They want to rule us with iron fist. They want to prohibit difference of opinions so they can force us so they can kill and oppress others in our name. They want to prohibit freedom of information so they can lie to us. They just can’t accept that their days are gone, long gone. This is information age. You can’t deceive and force people as easily now as it used to be.

You can check all these in wikipedia. Yasid’s dad, Muamiyah, that inherited the kingdom to Yasid, used Islam to pursue his own end. When he’s about to lose, he’ll put quran on tip of his soldiers’ spears so things are settled through mediation. Just like terrorists use Islam to avoid our wrath. After that, he indirectly, through his son that he chose to replace him, slaughter Muhammad’s descendant.

Is this the kind of leader Indonesians want? Muslim or not, do we want to be ruled by this type of people?

That’s the true face of terrorism and power. That’s what will happen if we restrict freedom of opinion. If we restrict freedom of opinions, we will all be lead by tyrants like Yasid. I know fully well that many of our politicians want to be like Yasid. We are a very corrupt country and our religious ministry is one of the most corrupt departments. Do we want to keep letting them?

Again and again fascist ideologies fail to deliver. Again and again we hear ad hoc assumption on how it’s the leader, and not the ideology that’s wrong. However stupidity and blind faith among the population is the one that make that kind of people to be leaders.

Fine, get something working then. Dubai is an islamic country too. If those terrorists practice their beating in Dubai, I bet they’ve been hanging by now. In any case, it simply makes sense to follow something successful now than something messed up right?

How many of our citizens want our country to be more like Taliban? C’mon. You like leaving in caves? Free market has improved our percapita income 4 times in mere 8 years. Free market works. Talibanism doesn’t.

This is a real world. Theories won’t cut it. They’re wrong, but arguments will lead to nowhere. Just see results. Dubai, US, or Taliban? What kind of country we want to be? If we’re not on the cutting edge of civilization, which we aren’t, it’s best to just follow those who are.

We are Asians. The japs say, why bother inventing. Just copy. That’s what we as Asians do. Why bother arguing for the best ideology. Just see whichever ideology bring prosperity to its people, and then copy. Simple?

Yes, islam can be one of the best ideology 1400 years ago. The key word here is 1400 y ears ago. Saying that it’s the way to go now is like saying intel 8086 is the best CPU ever.

Most of us, favor freedom or religion. Freedom of religion at least means freedom to choose religions. Only heretics and apostates ever choose their religion. If even that’s not allowed, what’s the meaning of our freedom of religion?

Because we didn’t have freedom of religions, our ancestors fought among themselves over petty doctrines. Because they follow blind faith rather than reason, they can’t reason out their differences. Then the dutch easily control and govern us. So why repeat the same mistake our ancestors make?

Let’s use our democracy for any significantly controversial issue. At the end, the true problem is not muslim vs non muslim. The true issue is whether we agree or want to be governed by those terrorists or not. I don’t. Do you? Well, get us that referendum and we’ll find that out.

I don’t know where the origin of this phrase comes from. Another synonym of this is the idea that you can’t have it both way.

We often see this in real life. You can have a car if you buy it. You can keep your money if you don’t get the car. But you can’t have it both way.

Why not?

The stories possibly comes from a hypothetical splitting the cake games. Ann and Bob agreed to split a big cake.

Ann split the cake into two, Bob then pick one piece of the 2 pieces. Now, because Bob picks the piece, Bob will pick the bigger pieces. Because Bob will pick the bigger pieces, Ann will have intensive to make the pieces equal.

Imagine if Ann split the cake and then choose which one Bob will have? Well Ann will split the piece unequally and give the much smaller piece to Bob. Bob wouldn’t like that and hence will insist to be the one with authority to split the cake and pick the pieces. So both side will kill each other rather than fairly splitting the cake. These will be a bad outcome. So, typical arrangement in a society is the one that split the cakes are different than the one choosing the pieces.

This principle is so important that most humans would feel that something is unfair when the system is in any other way. As usual, our emotion is a good guidance but far from perfect in seeing this truth.

We have situations like this in life. Mutually beneficial outcome requires a certain balance of fair opinion. When that balance is disturbed, the one getting the better terms will simply abuse their power and hurt the others. So people will then fight to get those better terms. Then society will be filled with blood shed. So, we often have rules where the one that split the cake is different than the one picking the pieces.

Say you sell a cake. Then you can decide the price, and buyers can decide whether they’ll buy or not. Imagine if you decide the price and then you can force buyers to buy? What happen is government programs, a highly inefficient resources allocations that impoverish many countries.

In capitalistic societies, rulers are not free to be selfish but have a lot of power, like power to coerce others. Businessmen, for example, can be as selfish as possible, but does not have power to lie or coerce others. Imagine if both powers reside in one hand. Imagine if rulers can accept bribe (in fact they often can and do). What will happen is every body wants to be rulers and there will be blood shed.

Another sample is a rule that with freedom comes responsibility. You can be free but you must be responsible. You can avoid responsibility but that would work only on things you don’t choose. Imagine if we allow people to be free and irresponsible?

Imagine if we allow people to incur debts and not paying it? Well people will just borrow a lot of money and disappear. Then no body will want to lend money. Then the whole credit market will be gone.

Imagine if we allow women to mate with the poor and then force every other males to support her kids? Actually we do. Well, we got more poverty. That’s western civilization main flaw that they somehow can afford thanks to capitalistic traits, but for how long?

So most societies usually have 3 arrangements.

1. Separate cake splitters than piece choosers.

2. Have one side to do cake splitting and piece choosing and kill each other to decide which one.

3. Have one side to do cake splitting and piece choosing and trick the other side that the side has only one role in some ambiguous way.

The third way is of course the better deal everybody will strive for. There are many ways to achieve the third outcome.

Imagine a judge or a jury. Judge has to be fair and impartial. Defendants are of course not impartial but they’re not the one deciding the verdict. Imagine if a judge gets bribed. Then the judge can has the power of deciding the verdict and getting bribe. When that happens, societies will not bother believing the consistency of the laws. Then we will kill each other. Hence, it’s important that people do not know what’s really going on.

The judge is also in a catch 2-2. If he judge fairly, he doesn’t get a bribe. If he judges according to his bribes he may get caught and sent to jail. So the key here is simply not getting caught.

What about if there is no way the judge can hide his mistake? Imagine if the truthfulness of the verdict is close to open knowledge, for example. What would happen? There is still another way. The judge can claim that he is simply mistaken, rather than deliberately being malicious.

Being mistaken tend to have lower political costs than being malicious. That’s because in one hand we want to punish the guilty, and on the other hand, we do not want to be punished for mistakes we do not deliberately make. So you see, we want to have our cakes and eat it too. What we truly encourage is people making mistakes.

So how do we pretend that we’re making mistakes rather than being maliciously wrong? You see, we’re in a catch 2-2 again here. Before most things are unknown anyway. Now, due to science and internet, people can easily see whether our mistake is reasonable or not. In one hand, it is profitable to lie in any way we want. On the other hand, science and internet makes it harder to lie too far away from where the evidences point. So what’s the solution? Faith. Of course.

Let’s take a look at the argument that creationism is science. If it’s not science it can’t be taught in public school. If it’s science, well, you will need evidences for every claims you make. So far, evidence creationism has are evidences that they could be right. Anything could be right. Here, by claiming that creationism is science, religions sort of want to have their cakes and eat it too.

Let’s examine another sample. Say I am a tyrant. Say I want to raise tax so I can build bigger palace equipped with more concubines. Say I am a tyrant in a democratic state. I am in a catch 2-2. If I just do it against every body’s will, I will be called a tyrant and be killed. However if I wait for everybody’s consent, I will not get my palace. That’s because most people obviously oppose higher tax, especially if the money is there just to build my palace.

Imagine if 100% of my followers worship the god Bob. For Bob to be worship able by 100% of the people, Bob must be flexible. If Bob said that I like higher tax, then we can be sure that at least 90% of the population do not truly worship Bob. However if Bob says nothing about it, then 90% of Bob’s follower also do not like higher tax. So we’re in a catch 2-2. There is only one truth. No matter how we twist it, 90% of the people in my country simply do not want higher tax. So how do I convince the world that they do?

When it comes to counting Bob’s follower, Bob is flexible. When it comes to deciding what my followers want, Bob suddenly has very narrow doctrines. Tada, I would say, that all people in my country worship Bob. True Bob worshipers support higher tax. Hence, people in my countries support higher tax for my palace. Which is simply untrue!

We see this technique used again and again. Suharto for example makes a concept of developing father. All people in Indonesia should support development. Supporting development means supporting Suharto. The truth is most people in Indonesia are sick for being ruled by Suharto. However, arguing what development is, and how supporting Suharto is, is well, an endless argument. That being said, Suharto is a controversial figure. People are sick of Suharto but also are sick of muslim extremists and socialism. One thing for sure is, Suharto’s follower can’t be more than 30-50%. In most truly democratic countries, a candidate tend to get around 55%.

Another trick is what’s used by Islamic terrorists. In one hand they claim that 80% of Indonesian are muslims. Then they claim that Islam (and all religions) prohibits porn. Hence, they claim that all people in Indonesia wants porn to be prohibited. The truth is 97% of Indonesians, just like 97% of teenagers in any countries, watch porn. Do you think 97% of the population wants their enjoyable acts criminalized? Obviously not. Well, maybe we do if we’re so corrupt and sly we want things to be criminalized because we want to use that as tools to get rid those we do not like knowing full well that we our self won’t get caught.

Freedom of religion is also questionable. In one hand it should at least include freedom to choose religions. On the other hand allowing people to choose another religion would mean losing a lot of followers and hence, political influences. So how do you solve the catch 2-2? Well, the only people that choose their religions are apostates and heretics. Just prohibit those 2 and you’re done.

In one hand, we do not want to look like we are rapists. On the other hand, if we do not force women around, the hot ones will pick Brad Pitt. Now, this will be the most controversial statement I make in this article because this sort of thing happens even in the most liberal countries. So, how do males force women and not call it rape? Yea they call it marriage. But then that means force marriage is rape then? Well, no. Why not? Because we don’t call it that way.

Okay, maybe it is. Then what? What does it mean by force? We force someone to do something by prohibiting all alternatives. However, do we really need to prohibit all alternatives. No. We need only to prohibit all better, popular, and open alternatives. Governments do not prohibit celibacy. Governments prohibit, in increasing order, women from working, sex outside marriage, and prostitution. Also government does not prohibit escort or massage parlors. Those are not open and hence, not going to be very popular.

The most fucked up countries will prohibit women even from working. The next fuck up ones will prohibit sex outside marriage. Then the more liberal one will either prohibit or tax prostitution. Let’s just guess which one will happen if all those are as legal as marriage? I bet prostitution will replace marriage en mass. Most women are either sluts or whores inside and if you talk to her right, with the right kind of money, I am sure you’ll get plenty. That’s now what I believe. That’s what I know.

When mongols attack persia, many husbands would rather kill their wives than to letting the women get rapped by mongols.

The fact is, from evolutionary psychology perspective, males see little differences between women being rapped by others and women consensually choosing others. They both lead to the same gene pool survival outcome, the extinction of the male.

Hence, that explains, all the honor killings we see all over the world.

Western countries tend to have rules favoring oppressed people in immigration. Oppressive countries are usually poor. Many people, currently, want to emigrate to western world. Even if they earn the same amount of money in their own country, many people are fed up with injustice they fear all the time.

So why not accept oppressed people from Islamic countries? There are many people that want to convert their religion but cannot. There are women that want to be porn stars. Why not accept them all? Jews accept Druze and those Druzes fight well on Israel sides. Why not accept Ahmadiyah members?

Those who are brave enough to face prosecution are most likely smarter than the rest anyway. It’s just fact that the oppressed people are usually the one more productive and less violent.

Another thing is why give citizenship away for free just because some people already lived for many years? Citizenship is like a club. If people want to join, it has a value. Just say, ah you want citizenship, well, our executive club price is $100 k, for example. Here, Dubai system is better I must admit.

That way, only people that really like the way things are, rather than those just wanting to join, will join.

As usual, all social problems in the world, is a form of market distortion.

Of course, western civilization has plenty of it’s own share of bigotry. Tax is bigotry against the productive, for example. Often muslim countries have lower tax and many would consider that a lesser evil. So I wouldn’t expect all the smart people to go to western civilization. However, each people should hang out with systems they like. Let’s see which one will produce more wealth. Let all countries compete for sources of productivity and justice will pop out by itself.

Islam nowadays are religions most used to justify violence and prohibitions against freedom of opinion. When people embrace violent approach, either by doing it or kowtowing to violence, they use Islam as justification. I don’t see people beating up someone for having a different opinions and do it under the name of Buddha, for example.

Religions are undoubtedly a highly effective (and defective) euphemistic techniques politicians use to guide the population. It’s not wise to say that I like bigger tax because I am lazy. I would rather say that I prefer that for more agreeable reasons, like social justice.

The same way power seeking bigots do not like to say that they kill those that unmask them to preserve their power. People simply has a way to direct responsibility. It’s called the invisible God.

We can think of religion as a political party.

Say somebody wants high tax and bigger welfare. Does he do so because he’s a Democrat or is he a Democrat because he like high tax and bigger welfare? Well, the latter is more correct of course. However, why do people want higher tax and bigger welfare tend to vote for Democratic party? That’s because Democrat parties tend to attract those people. After a while, Democrat parties will tend to support interests of such people. That means more and more people like that will vote for democrat. So in a sense, the causality is not just one way. It’s more of a circular causality.

Circular causality is more like circular reasoning. The latter is false, but still identifying it will correctly predict why people keep having stronger and stronger faith on something.

The same way, does people hate freedom of thought and porn because they are muslim or do they become muslim because they hate freedom of thought and porn? It’s more of both way with bigger arrow on the latter.

Just like political parties changes their stance through out centuries, religions also tend to change their stands. It’s difficult for political parties to change their stances easily. That’s because those political parties are heavily supported by their base. Changing what they stand for will change their base and that means losing support.

Just like religious followers kowtow to their religious interpretation, the same way religious interpretation tend to kowtow to the interest of their followers, probably weighted by relative power or influence toward the making of those interpretations. I see that this principle correctly predict religious teaching far more than their scriptures.

There are probably a very few small group of extremely esoteric groups that see religions as inspiration. Religious texts matter to those and only to those small groups. Most of the time, religions are simply one of many effective ways to persuade other humans to agree on a certain political stances that benefit the religious interpreters. In the majority of cases, the interest of religious interpreters simply decide what their religious interpretations are.

Different individuals have different traits that benefit under different rules. Diligent productive people, for example, prefer low tax and lazy parasites prefer high tax. People tend to support traits that best serve them in voting or in fighting. Certain religious values then often appeal to a certain type of people.

The trend that I observe is that Islam is simply the religion violent people more likely choose as their mascot now.

It’s true that most other religions also have their fair share of violent teaching. After all, most popular religions are made a long time ago. A long time ago, before Wealth of Nation by Adam Smith, violence are the way to solve virtually all social problem. Might makes right and that’s just that.

However, through cultural processes religions tend to change their bases and hence change their stands. As a religion becomes popular, so is their interpretation. After all, in any society, there will be some liberals, some conservative, some socialist, and plenty of moderate libertarians. If all of them worship Bob, for example, then there will be liberal Bobish, conservative Bobish, socialist Bobist, and libertarian Bobists. When that happens, religion of god Bob, for example, don’t stand for anything. I think major traits in all major religions are their flexibility that allow those religions to be accepted by a large wide range of people.

So we often end up in a catch 2 2. If we said Islam is pro violent, we’re wrong because many Muslims are actually peaceful. If we said Islam is against violent, we can only wonder why those suicide bombers are not Christians, or satanists for example. We would also wonder why those suicide bombers use Islam, rather than Buddhism as their justification. Perhaps, because they know that they will be more easily approved by Islamic bases than by Buddhist bases.

Like most political parties, while there are differences within political parties, there are also significant differences between political parties. We can guess that anti abortion advocates will be much more likely picking republican than democrats. The same way, black people are more likely to vote for democrats rather than republican in US now. It’s actually the opposite during Jim Crow’s era.

The same way, when there are several religions in the same country, then different elements of a society will be more likely to pick different religions.

Nowadays, Islam seems to find their niche among frustrated power hungry facist males that don’t like to think. There are a lot of people like that in any society and most of them are more likely to embrace Islam than say atheism.

Of course, just 50 years ago it’s the other way around. I wrote this on 2010 by the way and still remember how atheist Vietnamese slaughtered a lot of people and how religions are one of the elements that save us from those commies.

Like most ancient religions, Islam allow polygamy and prohibit sex outside marriage and prostitution. In one area of this issue, proponent of Islam is surprisingly correct. Women do often want to share a richer smarter males than being the only one for a poor ones. Prohibition of polygamy in western society is not there to protect women. It’s there to protect males that won’t get any if supermen are banging too many girls.

In fact, that’s what christianity is all about. It’s also western civilizations most unique traits. Rationing women in equal share for every one ensuring that anyone irrelevant of beauty, wealth, or sexual orientation will end up producing the same number of kids. That’s Christians’ main base and value for the last, well, 1000 years at least.

The tradition goes back all the way to Sparta where the only way a man could breed is if he broke some laws. At the end while winning a lot of battle, Spartans simply don’t breed enough kids and slowly disappear, which is the exact same problem western civilizations face.

Nowadays, the only way a male can have more than one women in western civilization is by breaking some norms, laws, and political career, which explains their dwindling gene pool survival relative to say, muslims. Around 1000 years ago, western europe civilization isn’t rich and powerful. They can’t import women from other countries and hence monogamy serve their bases. Those traits simply don’t evolve out yet despite the fact that Europeans are on top of the world now.

However, women also often prefer to have normal free sex outside marriage or prefer cold hard cash in prostitution. Allowing polygamy while prohibiting sex outside marriage do not put power on women in choosing their mates and terms of their matting.

Of course, the more beautiful the woman, the more those women will want to value their right to use their bodies as their please. In western civilization anti free sex feminists are usually ugly and the pro freedom feminists are usually pretty.

So by allowing polygamy Islam run against the interest of the majority of males population. By prohibiting free sex, Islam run against the interest of hot babes where power to freely choose mate matters most. That means Islam is more likely to be popular among authoritarian people that love violent and hate free sex.

There is only one way that kind of stand will ever work out. Namely if Islam shows up in authoritarian non democratic and unfree countries.

There is no way legalization of polygamy can be popular in democratic countries. The same way, prohibition of sex outside marriage obviously hurt the interest of most free loving women. Prohibition of prostitution also hurt the interest of most valued sex objects, namely hot babes.

Again, I do not see this as a necessarily a bad thing. I for once, do not like the idea of rationing females in equal share for everyone or having government interfere in economy. However, we need to understand why Islam, hot babes, and democratic western civilizations simply don’t get along with each other.

While most people in democratic countries argue whether we should have universal health care or not or whether abortion should be legal or not, or whether tax should be lower and higher, or whether porn should be more legal or not, Islam comes with an out of the box solution. They effectively say that it’s not up to us to decide but up to those with the most capability to seize power by terrorizing the rest of us.

While most democratic countries are ruled by moderates, islamic countries nowadays are ruled by extremists. In democratic countries, those who are too lazy to even vote shape the politics. In islamic monarchs, those who are willing to die and kill others are the one that shape politics. That’s simply what islamic base is.

As sure as I can guess that anti abortion advocates in US are more likely to vote for Republicans, I can pretty much guess that typical democratic loving porn stars are less likely to become muslims. I would predict that typical muslims are more likely to hate porn star and democracy than typical satanists for example.

There are many other causes I do not mention. For example, countries that lose war against other cultures tend to be filled with bigots. So Europe countries that are ruled by muslims or mongols like spain or rusia tend to be poorer than the rest. I suppose if you get screwed over by someone else too different your first reaction is not to serve the world but to kick ass first. Muslims countries have lost so many war and the only victories they have are victories against civilians that do not even hate them. That could be another reason why Islam attract thugs.

Islamic country that kicked ass like Turkey and Egypt tend to be more liberal than their military losers brethens.

The way I see it is that Islam, as a religion, not as political party, by it self, is only 60% of the problem. Another 40% of the problem is that different individuals will simply agree and want different thing than what we wish just as we disagree with them. That’ll be the problem on any society we live in. Like it or not, others will have power over us against our will. The same way, we too can have power over others should we wish to neutralize that.

Will destroying Islam end all religious violent and facism? Hmm… Will voting for republicans lower tax? Probably. But then high tax supporters will simply find different parties. The same way, if Islam is destroyed, the violent power hungry people will simply come up with different mascots. But yea, it’ll work out for a short time.

Religions are mainly a mask. Those who are violent under the name of Islam are also violent even without Islam. I do not know what to do with them as I obviously have many muslim friends.

For now, and it may change, I tend to see that fighting Islam, instead of bigotry in general, is more of a waste of fire power and unnecessarily alienate too many people.

Banning Islam, for example, would not help. Bigots will still exist and they’ll simply raise different banner, this time in a world where government has power to restrict speech and hence promote bigotry.

Western civilizations also have their fair share of bigotry such as http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj16n1-10.html without “help” from Islam. While Islam whip women for having sex outside marriage, Americans seize people’s car just for getting consensual blow job.

Perhaps our world will always be on the balance between several bigots. Perhaps the answer is not to fight all bigots but to unleash any opinion, no matter how evil, from the chain of censorship so they balance each other out. Nazism… Anyone?

Most atheists would say none. Well, even if you’re atheist you should know that religions are very influential. Think of religions as political parties. People have choices. They pick their choices often based on the most stupid irrational ideas. That’s just one of the consequences of democracy that we just have to live with. People make choices we do not like.

Like political parties, religions change their traits as a function of time. Democrat party in US, for example, used to hate blacks and pro slavery. Now democrats get more black votes than republicans. So this is not the verdict of a religion in general. This is just the contemporary trends those religions seem to evolve nowadays.

If you hate freedom of opinions, abhor individuals’ choice, love violence, plan to have many publicly recoqnized wives openly against the wish of all other males, and prefer bigger roles for government on religions you should promote Islam. The most fascist religion today.
If you want to ration females in equal share for everyone, you should promote Christianity, because for the last 1500 years, that’s what Christianity is all about.
If you like porn and love technology, you should promote Judaism.
If you want the productive to be taxed heavily so the lazy cannot work even if they want to, you should promote atheism. The most factually sensible and yet often produce the most politically crazy ideas that defy common sense, like elimination of poverty rights. One day these people will do something right. I wouldn’t jump both feet on what they propose right away.

What religions should you promote to change the world toward free market? I would say Taoism.

What the religion actually say about those things are always arguable. However, the trend is those religions are the mascots for their respective followers.